Moments
by Allicat9
Summary: "There is never a time or place for true love. It happens accidentally, in a heartbeat, in a single flashing, throbbing moment." one-shots Five Dragon Age love stories. PLEASE R&R
1. Stay

There are moments-peaceful, quiet moments just after dawn-when Fenris can simply watch her. He'll open his eyes and she'll be there, head pillowed on his chest, dark hair fanned out across the bed, slumbering and unaware, wandering the Fade.

He never thought he'd like the idea of a mage touching the Fade, but when Hawke describes her nighttime travels, they are always beautiful and always happy. So unlike his own dreams. Hawke may have her demons, but they do not find her in the Fade.

Sometimes when he wakes he lies there for a moment, just a moment, and pretends that _this_ -this moment with Hawke across his chest, with their clothing scattered around her room-could be his forever. He pretends that he is not broken and pretends that he deserves her. Those days are the hardest. Those days when he leaves her to wake alone, he feels both guilty and relieved. Guilty because he knows that he has hurt her and relieved because alone, in his dilapidated mansion his thoughts are not clouded and his memory returns.

Those days Hawke comes to find him. Maybe for a reading lesson, maybe just because. He doesn't always know the reasons, but she always comes to find him.

But sometimes he lingers. Sometimes he lets her warmth and her breathing lull him back to sleep. Sometimes he will watch as the sunlight crosses her face-her delicate jaw, her flickering eyelids, the shape of her lips. Sometimes he will brush the hair from her face, or trace her lips with his finger, or kiss her awake because she makes him _want_.

Sometimes Fenris stays.


	2. Roses

The shrieks coming from his bedroom do not disturb him; odd, considering he had been a Grey Warden, Templar and bastard prince all at once. But that was long ago, nearly ten years in the past, and the shrieks he hears now are interspersed with giggles. He is no longer on the run, cold, terrified, and unsure of what the future has in store. Now, he is king. Now, for the moment, he is safer then he has ever been.

The sight that greets him when he pushes open his bedroom door brings a smile to his lips. The bedroom is far from organized. The room is bursting with vases full of white roses; the floor is littered with clothing shed in passion and children's toys-which brings Alistair's eyes to the most precious adornment in the room.

His wife, blonde hair loose around her face, cheeks flushed, smile adorning her beautiful face, is crouched low to the ground, despite her skirts.

"Darling!" she turns to him from her position on the floor, "You're just in time!"

"Da!" A small, blonde toddler with her mother's blue eyes rounds the corner of his desk with impressive speed and toddles straight into his waiting arms.

Elissa laughs and straightens, "She wanted to come find you when you were in your meeting with Eamon, but I successfully distracted her."

"Good job, Mama." Alistair smiles as he scoops his daughter off the floor; his daughter shrieks in delight and promptly bops him on the nose with one, tiny, fist.

She crosses the room and kisses him on the mouth, "Thank you Daddy."

The toddler, now between them, gurgles happily and tangles the hand not currently hitting Alistair's nose in her mother's curls.

"Mamamama!"

"Very good Rosie."

He kisses his daughters forehead gently as his wife presses her head into his shoulder.

Together, they stand in the home they fought to build with the family they fought to create, united in love and surrounded by roses.


	3. This and Nothing More

This is how they love.

With late nights and endless wine. With whispered pleas against sweat-covered skin. With passionate kisses on rumpled sheets. With unspoken declarations and soft touches.

'Them' isn't easy. It doesn't happen overnight. Maybe it takes weeks. Maybe it takes months. Maybe it's nearly a year before either of them notices that one cannot bear to be parted from the other. There is not a more unsuitable couple in all of Thedas, they are sure. A Qunari spy and a Tevinter altus. The strangeness of their pairing is not lost on either of them. Their relationship is far from the "perfect" that Dorian had imagined for himself. And Bull? Bull hadn't thought about a future at all. The Bull chooses to laugh. Dorian chooses to avoid the obvious. Each comes to terms with their love in his own way at his own time.

This is how they live.

With reckless abandon, hard and fast. With sun-kissed mornings and lazy afternoons. With smiles meant just for the other. With secrets shared only between them.

Soon, in no time at all, there is only 'them'. They have forever stretched out before them. A forever together. It's something Dorian thought he would never have and something Bull thought he would never want. It takes some time to get used to. Dorian has to get used to life on the road. Bull has to get used to opening up to another person.

It is far from perfect, but then, Dorian decides, he wasn't so sure he would like perfect anyway.


	4. Promises

She'd promised herself she'd never get in this deep again. Not with a man like Hawke. Not with a man who had responsibilities. Not with a man who had a life. Not with a man who could actually capture her heart. Never. She'd promised.

Isabela had always been good at keeping her promises to herself. She'd gotten out of her nightmarish marriage (albeit with some well-timed help from a certain dashing assassin). She'd bought her own boat, she'd found her own crew. She'd sailed from Denerim to Val Royeaux, from Qarinus to Kirkwall, and back again. Along the way she'd robbed, raided and slept her way through most of the known world. In just eleven years, she'd literally become the captain of her own life and she had vowed never to hand the keys to her life to anyone. They were too valuable.

And then she'd met Garrett Hawke. Tall, handsome as all Thedas, with a voice that could make her wetter than a nug on the Storm Coast. They fucked on the regular-the man had been ridiculously easy to seduce-and for all Hawke's diplomatic, calm, demeanor, the man was a beast between the sheets (in the best way-to be sure). He might have been one of the best she'd ever had.

He was also a very different man from anyone Isabela had bedded in the past. He was…kind, considerate. Not just in the bedroom and not just to her. He went out of his way to help others-street children, nobles, mages, Templars, elves and humans alike. He was devoted to his family-the ragtag group of misfits he'd brought together included-but especially to his mother and sisters. Isabela had never had a family-not really. Hawke had given her that. Leandra was forever mending her clothes and trying to force Isabela into something "a bit more covering". Marian, so lively and witty, was as good a friend as she'd had in all her years at sea. Bethany-now trapped in the Circle Tower-brought out every protective instinct Isabela had thought she didn't have. It was odd to find herself surrounded by people that cared for her.

She didn't know when it began changing from 'just sex' to 'sex and'. But it had. It had started in earnest when Isabela had returned (returned!) from the sea with the tome the Arishock had torn apart Kirkwall to find. When the Arishock had demanded her life, Hawke had stood by her, though she had done nothing to deserve his loyalty. It had solidified upon the death of his mother. Leandra had been dear to her, and Isabela did not have to fake either the horror or the sadness she felt when they discovered what had happened to Hawke's beloved mother. She had told him she loved him, that night in the Gallows, when their world was falling apart and he had promised never to leave her-to always come back.

She'd never thought that Hawke would be a man to break such a promise.

Varric's letter, carefully written, had arrived innocently enough at her and Hawke's cottage in Harper's Ford. There was no indication as she tore open the envelope that the world she and Garrett had maliciously constructed over the years was about to come crashing down.

 _Rivani,_ the letter began, and it only got worse-oh-so much worse from there.

Inquisition. Adamant. Grey Wardens. Fade. Left behind.

He was dead. Varric's letter didn't say it, and maybe, somewhere in the Fade, Hawke wasn't actually dead. But he had been left physically, in a world that he did not belong in. If the demons didn't kill him, he would starve or be mutilated by the ever-changing dreamscapes or go mad from the terrors he would no doubt encounter. And there was no way to get him back. There was no rescue to be had.

Every dream they had had was gone. Garrett had talked about having kids and, though she had laughed at the thought of her being a mother, she hadn't hated the idea. Now she would never get the chance. Now they would never get the chance. Garrett would never fix the leak in the roof, or help her mend the sails on her ship, or smile at her innuendos when she was trying to get him into bed. He would never kiss her lips, he neck, her breast, again. He would never again tickle her during sex, or snuggle into her side afterwards. She would never again feel his large hand encompassing hers. Never. Never. Never.

Isabela Hawke sat in her now too large cottage with a last name that belonged to a dead man and did not cry.


	5. Legendary

They move around each other like a story.

Varric watches them. The Dalish Inquisitor, barley out of her teens, and the researcher that is neither City nor Dalish and who must be closing in on forty. Despite their age difference, despite the fact that he looks down upon everything she was raised to revere, they are drawn to one another.

Varric knows what a love story looks like. He has written many-and some of them were even good! He recognizes that look that the Inquisitor gets whenever Solas happens to catch her eye. Marian got the same one whenever Fenris came into the room, and Dorian gets it when he's leaning over the table in the Tavern in order to hear Bull better (though he'd never admit to such a thing).

Solas looks at the Inquisitor like a predator might look at prey, or a man dying of thirst man might look at a stream. He gazes at her like he has never seen anything like her and like he doesn't know what to do now that he's seen her.

The Inquisitor is a bright spirit, curious and kind. She's the best kind of person, Varric thinks. Someone who is intelligent without being jaded and who never confuses power and cruelty. Solas-well, he can't really get a read on the man. He is quiet and plenty smart, but there is a coiled power there-a passion buried deep-just waiting to be released. He is a mystery and the Inquisitor is not and maybe that's why they move like they do.

They dance when their together. Not literally, but they move in a way that Varric has never seen. It is ancient and wild and quiet all at once, as though each is playing a song that only the other can hear. When Varric looks at them together, he can envision the nobles of Arlathan.

Solas makes Varric nervous though. He just has a feeling about the man. Solas could break her, the way nothing-not the Breach, not the titles, not the war-has managed to yet. He's not sure if Solas knows how much power he has over the woman. He wonders if Solas cares.

Varric knows what a love story looks like. He also knows what a tragedy looks like. He has written many-some of them were even good! A love like the one between the Inquisitor and Solas happens maybe once every age. He doesn't know how their particular story will turn out-even he can't see the future.

But he knows enough to tell that a story like theirs will rattle the histories. A story like theirs will be legendary.


End file.
